Frisbees

In 1871, a company, The Frisbee Pie Company, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, sold pies in little circular pie tins. College students, who bought the pies, started throwing the tins to each other for hours of entertainment. A lot of colleges, after that, had claimed to be the college of “he who was first to fling” (Norton 72). The sensation known as the risbee was going to sweep the nation.

In 1948, Walter Morrison, of the Pipco Flyin-Saucer company, created a plastic Frisbee called the “Whirlo-Way”. It was co-developed and financed by Warren Franscioni. Then in 1955, Walter Morrison and Warren Franscioni created the “Pluto Platter”. Many Americans bought it with the growing popularity of UFOs. The Pluto Platter became the outline and model for other Frisbees.

In 1957, the toy production company, Wham-O, started producing these discs, still called Pluto Platter. After the name Frisbee was developed, on June 17, 1957, sales boomed and the Frisbee was marketed as a new sport. Later, in 1964, the brand new, professional model was sold. The aerodynamic design for the modern Frisbee was patented by Ed Headrick, who at the time was the sales manager of Wham-O. In 1970, Wham-O had reached a group of college students that were engulfed by the sensation known as Ultimate Frisbee.

In ultimate Frisbee, the objective was to pass to teammate’s in the other team’s end zone, like in football, and score points by doing so. The first team to reach a set number of points wins. Each team consists of around 20 people playing for each team. During the game, seven people play on field at one time, and you can substitute players on to the field.

Teams use a regulation175 gram Frisbee. In major tournaments, the Frisbee is provided by the leader of the tournament.

To start a game, the players of each team line up on the other teams end zone and the defending team “pulls” or kicks off, like in football, while yelling “Ultimate!” to signal the game is starting. The idea is to pull, or throw the disc far down the field and throw it high get a lot of hangtime, which gives the defending/pulling team a chance to block the other team. Players on defense guard the other team’s players and try to intercept the disc.

As the offensive side moves up the field, they can pass the Frisbee to any teammate in any direction, while staying inbounds. Each player catching the Frisbee can only take a predetermined number of steps and then must pass to another teammate until reaching the end zone. Then the team scores a point when the player with the disc passes the disc to another teammate in the end zone. Finally, the teams switch sides and the team that just scored pulls to the other team and play starts all over again.

In 1970, at Lafayette College, the first college ultimate Frisbee club was created.

Then on November 6, 1972, the first college competition was held at the college campus of Rutgers’ New Brunswick. It was Rutgers versus Princeton. Interestingly, it was the 103rd anniversary of the first intercollegiate game of North American Football, which was held between the same two schools and was also in the same location.

In 1975, many colleges had organized ultimate Frisbee teams which led to players organizing the first ultimate